I got up and grasped the remaining wing of the butterfly. Maybe there was a little magic left in it—the good kind—because I felt some of my fear subside. Holding it first with one hand and then the other, I did a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. I saw the three spires of the palace against the darkening sky, and now they were roughly where what remained of my sense of direction told me they should be. I couldn’t see the city wall and hadn’t really expected to. The pedestal I stood on was high, but too many buildings were in the way. Purposely, I was almost sure.
“Wait, Radar,” I said. “This won’t take long.” I hoped I was right about that. I bent down and picked up a piece of stone with a sharp point and held it loosely in my fist.
Time ticked by. I counted to five hundred by tens, then by fives, then lost count. I was too concerned with the darkening day. I could almost feel it draining away, like blood from a bad cut. At last, just when I’d begun to believe I’d climbed up here for nothing, I saw a darkness arise in what I’d decided to call the south. It came toward me. The monarchs were returning for the night. I held my arm out, pointing it like a rifle toward the oncoming butterflies. I lost sight of the cloud when I knelt down again but continued to hold my arm out straight. I used the point of the shard I’d picked up to scratch a mark on the side of the pedestal, then sighted along my outstretched hand at a gap between two buildings on the far side of the park. It was a start. Assuming the gap didn’t disappear, that was.
I pivoted on my knees and slid my legs over the edge. My plan was to hold on until I was dangling from the side of the pedestal, but my hands slipped and I fell. Radar gave a single bark of alarm. I knew enough to let my knees flex and to roll when I landed. The ground was soft from the rain, which was good. I got splashed from head to toe with mud and water, which wasn’t. I got up （almost falling over my eager dog when I did）， wiped my face, and looked for my mark. I pointed my hand along it and was relieved to see the gap between the two buildings was still there. The buildings—wood, not stone—were diagonally across the park. I saw standing water in places and knew the three-wheeler would get bogged down for sure if I tried to ride it. I was going to owe Claudia an apology for leaving it behind, but I’d worry about that when I saw her. If I did.
“Come on, girl.” I slung on my pack and began to run.
3
We splashed through the wide puddles of standing water. Some were shallow, but in places the water was almost up to my knees, and I could feel the mud trying to suck the sneakers from my feet. Radar kept pace easily, tongue flying, eyes bright. Her fur was soaked and matted to her newly muscular body, but she didn’t seem to mind. We were having an adventure!
The buildings looked to me like warehouses. We reached them and I stopped long enough to re-settle and re-tie one of my sopping sneakers. I looked back at the pedestal. I could no longer make out my mark—the ruined tableau was at least a hundred yards behind us—but I knew where it was. I pointed with both arms, back and ahead, then ran between the buildings with Radar right beside me. They’d been warehouses, all right. I could smell the ancient ghost-aroma of the fish that had been stored in them long ago. My pack bounced and jounced. We came out on a narrow lane lined with more warehouses. They all looked as if they’d been broken into—probably looted—long ago. The pair directly across from us were too close together to slip between, so I went right, found an alley, and ran through it. On the far side was someone’s overgrown garden. I jinked to the left, back to what I hoped was my former straight line, and ran on. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t twilight—not yet, not yet—but it was. Of course it was.
Again and again I had to detour around buildings that were in our way, and again and again I tried to regain the straight course to where I’d seen the butterflies. I was no longer sure I was doing that, but I had to try. It was all I had.
We passed between two great stone houses, the gap so narrow I had to sidle （Radar had no such problem）。 I came out, and to my right, in a walkway between what might once have been a grand museum and a glass-sided conservatory, I saw the city wall. It reared above the buildings on the far side of the street, the clouds so low in the gathering gloom that the top was lost.
“Radar! Come on!”
That gloom made it impossible to know if real dark had come or not, but I was terribly afraid it had. We ran down the street we’d come out on. Not the right one, but close to the Gallien Road, I felt sure of it. Ahead of us the buildings gave way to a cemetery on the far side of the street. It was full of leaning gravestones, memorial tablets, and several buildings that had to be crypts. It was the last place I wanted to venture into after dark, but if I was right—God, please let me be right, I prayed—that was the way we had to go.